apush ch 1 keyterms

Western Hemisphere

When discussing the world longitudinally (lengthwise), geographers often divide the globe into two halves (hemispheres). The Western Hemisphere includes North America, Mexico, Central America, and South America; the Eastern Hemisphere includes Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Muslims

People who practice the religion of Islam, a monotheistic faith that accepts Mohammed as the chief and last prophet of God; born ca. 570 on the Arabian Peninsula, around 610 Mohammed began having religious visions, which were recorded as the Qur’an, the sacred text that is the foundation for the Islamic religion.

Vikings

Medieval Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian groups who responded to land shortages and climatic conditions in Scandinavia by taking to the sea and establishing communities in various parts of western Europe, Iceland, Greenland, and North America.

Paleo-Indian

The first group of migrants from Asia to the Western Hemisphere, presumed to have begun arriving before thirty thousand years ago.

Na-Dene

The second group of migrants from Asia to the Western Hemisphere, presumed to have begun arriving around fifteen thousand years ago.

Eskimo-Aleut

The last major group of migrants from Asia to the Western Hemisphere, who probably began arriving around five thousand years ago.

mound builder

Name applied to a number of Native American societies—including the Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian cultures—that constructed massive earthen mounds as monuments and building foundations.

Moors

Natives of northern Africa who converted to Islam in the eighth century and carried the Islamic religion and culture both to southern Africa and to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), which they conquered in the eighth century.

Reconquista

The campaign undertaken by European Christians to recapture the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, accomplished in 1492.

Ferdinand and Isabella

Joint rulers of Spain (r. 1469–1504); their marriage in 1469 brought together the rival kingdoms of Aragon and Castile and united Spain.

Aztecs

An Indian group living in central Mexico; the Aztecs used military force to dominate nearby tribes; their civilization was at its peak at the time of the Spanish conquest.

Christopher Columbus

(Cristoforo Colombo) Italian explorer in the service of Spain who attempted to reach Asia by sailing west from Europe, thereby arriving in America in 1492.

Amerigo Vespucci

Italian explorer of the South American coast; Europeans named America after him.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of people, plants, animals, and diseases among Europe, Africa, and North America that occurred after Columbus’s arrival in the New World.

cash crops

A crop raised in large quantities for sale rather than for local or home consumption.

manioc

Also called cassava and tapioca, a root vegetable native to South America that became a staple food source throughout the tropical world after 1500.

acquired immunity

Resistance or partial resistance to a disease; acquired immunity develops in a population over time as a result of exposure to harmful bacteria or viruses. Indians lacked acquired immunity to European diseases, which decimated Indian populations.

Slave Coast

A region of coastal West Africa adjacent to the Gold Coast; it was the principal source of the slaves taken out of West Africa from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries.

Reformation

A religious movement beginning in the sixteenth century that began as an internal attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but soon led to the breakup of the Church into competing denominations.

Protestantism

The beliefs and practices of Christians who broke with the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation; rejecting church authority and the necessity of the priesthood, Protestants accepted the Bible as the only source of revelation, salvation as God’s gift to the faithful, and a direct, personal relationship with God as available to every believer.

Henry VIII

King of England (r. 1509–1547); his desire for an annulment from his first wife led him to break with Catholicism and establish the Church of England.

Elizabeth I

Queen of England (r. 1558–1603); she succeeded the Catholic Mary I and reestablished Protestantism in England; her reign was a time of domestic prosperity and cultural achievement.